


"Come Here. Let Me Fix It."

by impulse_baker



Series: 100 Ways to Say 'I Love You' [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel Knows, Dean Needs to Use Actual Words, Fluff, M/M, Mixtape, Pining, but its ok, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 13:37:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12913032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impulse_baker/pseuds/impulse_baker
Summary: We still haven't gotten a scene with Dean and Cas listening to The Mixtape together,so I went ahead and wrote TWO times when they sit down and appreciate the subtext.





	"Come Here. Let Me Fix It."

The mixtape was a labor of love. Totally platonic, bro-ed out, ‘I love you but it a brotherly way’, kind of love, of course. Painstakingly choosing each song to convey his message of dude-bro love took days, and then recording them just right on a blank cassette tape that he totally didn’t go out of his way to find, took hours. All his efforts were purely in the best interest of his best friend, of course. He just wanted to give him something good to listen to maybe whenever he had a hankering for music, or whenever he was away from the Bunker.

_Whenever he was away from Dean._

It wasn’t about wanting Cas to have a piece of him whenever he was out doing Chuck knows what. It wasn’t about trying to show Cas that under his gruff exterior there were melodies that told a softer story.

Sure, maybe Dean hoped that he and Castiel could listen to it together once or twice. It was a possibility that he had visions of them sitting on the hood of Baby under a starry sky, sharing a cooler of beer, listening to Robert Plant sing about good times and sharing love. Perhaps he had written ‘tracks’ as ‘traxx’ as an x rated double meaning.

And worst of all, maybe Cas trying to give the tape back hurt more than reasonable, because after all, it was only a piece of plastic. But it felt like Castiel was saying _here is the piece of yourself that you gave to me. I don’t want it anymore. I don’t choose you anymore._ He didn’t know if it was fair to think that way, but Dean Macho Man Winchester could only repress so much.

So yeah, maybe there were a lot of things about the mixtape that Dean wasn’t being honest with himself about. But that didn’t matter, because it was back where it belonged, in the breast pocket of his angel’s coat. _That’s the closest to his heart I could ever get_.

 

 

The first time they finally listened to it together was after a pretty bad argument. Dean tried to take on more vampires than he could handle at a time and Castiel literally ripped the head off one that had gotten too close to Dean’s pulse point.

“How could you be so reckless?” Cas was seething and the air in the Impala was thick with tension.

“If I hadn’t made a move when I did, that kid would have died! What was I supposed to do?”

“Wait! You were supposed to wait for Sam to get to that part of the house and then get out so I could finish them off! Did you not trust that I could get it done?” The angel rarely raised his voice to a shout, but he was getting pretty damn close.

“Fuck, man, no! I trusted that you would have my back! I knew you wouldn’t let anything happen to us!” While Castiel could be trusted not to start a screaming match, Dean had less self-control, especially with Cas and Sam.

“You could have been killed. Or bitten. Do you really value something so precious to _me_ , as so little?” His tone was bleeding with contained rage and it doused some of the flames of Dean’s consuming self-deprecation. The volume of their conversation dropped significantly from when they first got in the car, and Dean was glad now that Sam chose to take the kids they saved to their homes himself. This conversation needed to happen, and it probably wouldn’t have if Sam was with them.

“Cas…It isn’t like that…” He didn’t actually know what he needed to say. Just that he needed to say something.

“Dean. Listen, please. When you risk your life in such a manner, you tell me that you don’t care what becomes of me, either.”

He definitely didn’t know what to say to follow _that_. So he let it stew between them. He let Castiel have the last word, because he didn’t deserve to have to try and explain to his thick skull. _He deserves better._

They sat like that in silence for a few miles. Dean tried to look at the angel out of his peripheral view, because he didn’t think he could look at him full on at that moment. As with most heavy conversations, he knew there would be too much written in blue that he couldn’t face.

Finally, Cas made a move. He reached into his coat to retrieve the mixtape, and he gingerly fed it into the tape deck. It started playing in the middle of a song, and he smiled, knowing it meant Cas had been listening to it before. He recognized the lines from ‘What Is and Never Should Be’.

_But the wind won’t blow, you really shouldn’t go, it only goes to show_

_That you will be mine, by takin’ our time._

Every song played until he had to switch it to the B side and after the first chorus of ‘Good Times Bad Times’, Dean broke their silence.

“I’m sorry.”

In lieu of words, the angel placed a reassuring hand on the hunter’s knee. He didn’t move it until they arrived at the Bunker.

 

 

“Cas, man, what are you doing in here?” Dean had been searching for the angel all afternoon, and now he finally found him in one of the far rooms of the Bunker that they didn’t really use. The first thing he noticed was the wide-eyed look of panic and terror and utter desperation etched onto Cas’ face. The second thing he noticed was an old-fashioned cassette tape player on a desk. The last thing he saw was a cassette with the tape dangling in several loops all around it.

“Dean! Dean, I don’t know what happened! I…I was rewinding it like you showed me and I don’t know what happened!” Dean knew what Cas looked like in the face of eminent death, and he could honestly say that the poor guy looked much more distressed now.

“I just needed to listen to it, but my truck doesn’t have a cassette tape player, and I couldn’t find the keys to the Impala, and I didn’t want to bother you but Dean, I needed to listen to it.”

“So, you found this room?” Dean asked like he was talking to a rattled animal. He sat next to him on the bed instead of the desk chair, angling his body fully towards him.

“Yes, Charlie had brought me here once. She was showing me an old audio book. But, I don’t know what happened now. I’ve ruined it. I’m so sorry, I ruined your gift. I really just had to…Dean I’m so sorry.” He clutched the tangled mess in his hands and turned away, ashamed.

“Come here. Let me fix it.”

His angel looked up at him with more hope in his eyes than when he found out God was back. Slowly, he held it out for Dean’s hands to take, and once it was safely deposited in his waiting palm, Cas inched closer to watch him work. Dexterously, the hunter alternated between untangling portions of the loose tape, and slotting his pinky in each of the holes to wind it back up. He cycled through the process numerous times, until finally, it was back to its original state.

“I’m sorry I almost ruined it.” His voice was hushed and low, and overwhelmingly apologetic.

Dean simply stood, placed the mixtape in one of the player compartments, and pressed the triangular ‘play’ button. ‘Ramble On’ started crooning out of the out dated speakers, but with Castiel sitting so close to him, poor sound quality was forgotten.

_Leaves are falling all around_ __  
It's time I was on my way  
Thanks to you I'm much obliged  
For such a pleasant stay

They listened to every song, and with each passing chorus, one of them, or both, shuffled closer with the thinly veiled excuses of readjusting on the bed. They shifted and wiggled until they ended up pressed tightly together, touching from shoulder to knee, side by side against the headboard.

        Dean would need to ask why Cas was so frazzled to begin with, but for now he could give the poor guy a break and just enjoy the quiet intimacy of listening to music together. Cursing all the complicated feelings making the mixtape brought him, Dean decided it was all worth it. Because this? This was worth everything.

**Author's Note:**

> I have so many thoughts on The Mixtape, partially because I ship Destiel so hard, but also because I love Led Zeppelin so much. If you want to talk about how perfectly non platonic the whole mixtape business was, find me on Tumblr [compulsive-baker](http://compulsive-baker.tumblr.com//)
> 
> Let me know what you think!
> 
> Previous work: "No, No. It's My Treat."  
> Next work: "I'll Walk You Home."


End file.
